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For steps not described fully - use your head.

PREPARE YOUR ROUGH CUTSClick here
for scrollable printable pic.
With the dimensions shown in the pic, make your rough cuts and apply
your finish. I had my lower powder coated to make sure that all the
adhesives stuck well but I was doing other parts so it might be
cost prohibitive. You can use Duplicolor Truck bed liner which is what I
used to touch up the nuts and washers. It matched my "Night Train"
textured black perfectly.

Drill the lower large bracket with 3/8"
holes 2 inches apart in the center 3/4" down from the top. Bend, but DO
NOT drill the smaller upper bracket. We are going to mark that with both
pieces in place in case you drilled slightly off on the large bottom
bracket. On the small top piece make a slight bend in the center of the
long part so that it will conform to the curve of the visor.

You may need to adjust the bend angles and dimensions to suit your needs, but the
outlines on the picture to the left seem to work well for my Garmin 1450.
If you have a vent, bend some cardboard to fashion test brackets to see
if you can make this work. I don't have a vent.

THIS IS MUCH EASIER TO DO WITH THE WINDSHIELD
OFF!Click here for scrollable printable
pic.Once you are ready to install, do a dry run first. Protect
your visor with duct tape and leave the red protective tape on the
3M & put your pieces in place. Leave about 1/4" space between the bottom
bracket upright and the visor edge. Use the vice grips to clamp it. See
if it all fits for you. If so, take the red protector off of the 3M on
the large bottom bracket and affix the bracket in place stuck to the
underside of the visor (remember to first remove the duct tape and clean with
alcohol the mating surface). Then, without your top pad affixed to it, put the top
bracket in place and clamp with the grips. Mark the holes as viewed from the bike's
seat through the
holes on the bottom bracket onto the top bracket. Remove, center punch and drill 3/8" holes
in the top bracket.
We left off the "pad" so that when you clamp and tighten to finalize, it
will be nice n' tight. Affix your pad to the top bracket, pull the duct
tape off the visor and set the bracket in place. Start the bolts through the assembly
...

WE SEE HOW THE SCREWS GO THROUGH THE RAMClick here for scrollable printable
pic....and loosely tighten the bolts through the RAM mount (trim the
bolts shorter if necessary). Center
everything up and clamp tightly with the vice grips again. As you tighten the
bolts, adjust the brackets as needed to keep everything lined up. Your GPS is now
ready to drop in the RAM mount. If you have done this properly,
you should have a good solid mount for your GPS which can be
subsequently removed
without damage to your visor (use the fishing line method to cut the 3M
and Ronsonol to get the residue off). You also now have a bracket in place to use
with any future GPS, you will just need to get the RAM cradle to fit the
new one.

FINISH UP BY TOUCHING UPClick here for scrollable printable
pic.Here is a good view of the finished product.
The picture at the right is the rider's view
so you can see how nothing on this mount covers any of the gauges on the
display. Note that I got a
right angle power supply @
eBay
for just a few dollars for the Garmin because I wanted it to exit on
the side to be completely hidden. The plug that came with it was right
angled and down. It is plugged in under the left
pocket using a
female lighter socket. I painted the bolts to match the powder
coat using
Duplicolor Black Truck Bed Liner. To touch up with a brush, just
spray some into a cup and dab on. It blends well as you can see. I first
mounted this using just the sticky tape on the bottom bracket but it was
the dead of winter and I could not test it. That first mount was done
with the windshield off. Once I could test it, it was rather noisy
clicking at each bump. I added the top bracket to steady it and it's
entirely solid and noise free. I fashioned the top bracket and installed
it with the windshield in place. If you have a vent, this might be
problematic.

Secret way to make your
nüvi record tracks like a Zumoclick on pics for larger view

This is how you access the secret
track recording of the nüvi . It's NOT the trip log which records every
15 seconds or so and is inaccurate. This records only the location every
second and makes for a very tight log of your travels. You can then load
the track into BaseCamp or MapSource and trace the
important roads with the route tools along the track. Track size limit
is what the memory can handle.

So, HOW do we do it??
First, tap
the speed on the map screen. On the next screen, press and hold the
center of the speedometer for about 6 seconds.

The Diagnostics Page
will appear on which you should tap Diagnostic Logging.
On the next Engineering Mode screen tap Start Recording.
If you have already saved some logs, you can delete from the nüvi by tapping the
Delete Log(s) text.

On the Select Data to Log
screen check GPX so we can use the track log
later. After you tap Start, you will be back at the map
screen and under "Ready to Navigate" (or whatever may appear in the top
bar), there will be an extra semi-transparent button with Stop
in it. When you are all done recording or you want to start a new
recording, tap that button.

Once we have our track recorded,
what can we do with it? We can load it into MapSource or BaseCamp. We
will look here at BaseCamp on Windows 8.1 but the method is the same for
loading both mapping programs and across platforms. First one must have "hidden
files" showing in Explorer. The tracks are in a system hidden folder
named ".system" on your nüvi internal memory so plug in your nüvi
with the USB cable and open Explorer. Below we see how to navigate the
directory tree to get to our track GPX files. The files are named by the
day they were recorded. Open the one you want with BaseCamp and the
result will look something like picture 2 below (I only went around a
rather large block for illustration purposes). How log a trip can you
record? Probably 24 or more hours. This logging consumes roughly .33 MB
per hour. This "mode" survives power down and starts a new GPX file
after power down. It will stay in this tracking mode until you tap
the "Stop" on the map below the top bar after which you will go back to
the "Start Recording and Delete logs" menu. Creating a route from one of
these tracks is as easy as tracing. In both Basecamp and MapSource it is necessary to draw a route
by following the track with the route tool. Now you have the ability to create detailed
routes with your nüvi just like those who have spent hundreds more on a Zumo!

What's the advantage of doing it this way vs the easily accessed
trip log data that the nuvi records anyway. The most notable feature is
that this way facilitates data organization. There is only one or two
files to sift through to find the record. In trip log, there are
typically several to several hundred files to sift through and your trip
might be split between more than one log. Recording every second this
record is much more accurate than the trip log data which records in 15
second intervals and sometimes shows wild detours.

Here's how to display hidden files and folders.

Open Folder Options by clicking theStartbutton,
clickingControl
Panel, clickingAppearance
and Personalization, and then clickingFolder
Options. or find folder options in a drive window.

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The information on these pages is
accurate to the best of the author's knowledge. The
author can assume no responsibility for the use or misuse
of this information by the reader. The reader is expected
to secure any other information needed from Service
Manuals or other sources. It is up to the reader to
determine his/her ability to make any modifications
noted. If the reader does not feel qualified he/she
should enlist professional help.

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For steps not described fully - use your head.

SO LIGHT THEY CAN GO ANYWHEREClick here
for scrollable printable pic.
This idea came from Denny modified by yours truly.
With a simple
suction mount
and a small 1 foot length of cord, you can achieve professional results
with these cameras that weigh just ounces. There's not much beyond that.
Tie your cord around the camera mount and on the other end tie a good
double knob knot. Affix your suction cup mounted camera to the shield
about six inches in from either side. Lift the levers to release the
garnish from the shield as if you were going to raise it and pull the
top out enough to drop your knot behind the garnish. Snap the levers
back down and you are ready to roll! Removal is the reverse of
installation.

For power or another tether, if you have a vent you can
run your power and tether out the vent. Else, a power cord around the
shield will do nicely.

CAPTURE AND EDIT YOUR MASTERPIECEClick here
for scrollable printable pic.I use Power Director for editing video. It has a stabilization
tool that essentially zooms your video a bit then takes the shakes out.
This not only takes out the bumps, it also serves to ameliorate the fish
eye effect (bent edges). You can completely eliminate the fish eye by
actually using the zoom tool which will net you a view of the footage as
if it were shot with a 5mm 80° lens instead of the 170° that most of
these light weight cameras come with. At left you can see the
results. It's a two minute video demonstrating the stabilization tool. YouTube can do the same thing, but if you can't redownload.....

Help keep this website alive. Donate what you will or simply click an ad on this page for free.

The information on these pages is
accurate to the best of the author's knowledge. The
author can assume no responsibility for the use or misuse
of this information by the reader. The reader is expected
to secure any other information needed from Service
Manuals or other sources. It is up to the reader to
determine his/her ability to make any modifications
noted. If the reader does not feel qualified he/she
should enlist professional help.